


You Give Me Fever

by ContrEeri



Category: Naruto
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexuality, Demisexuality, Grey-A, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-17
Updated: 2015-01-17
Packaged: 2018-03-07 23:56:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3188048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ContrEeri/pseuds/ContrEeri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gaara was sick. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been sick or what it entailed, but it was the only explanation he could come up with as to why he felt so hot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Give Me Fever

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in 2010 for the LJ community 500themes. The prompt was "kindle my soul".

He was sick.

He couldn't remember the last time he was sick and most certainly could not afford to be sick, but it was the only logical explanation for how he felt. It was probably a fever. His brother had had a fever once and Temari had taken care of him until he'd gotten better. Gaara had stood around, unsure of what to do while Temari tried to explain that he didn’t need to worry, Kankurou would be fine.

“He just has a fever,” she had said before placing a wet cloth on his forehead. Kankurou’s face had been red and he’d been sweating profusely.

Gaara wasn’t sweating, but he was definitely hot enough to sweat he thought. Kankurou had been out for days when he'd come down with a fever; Gaara could not afford that. He was the Kazekage, he had duties to attend to and a village to protect. He just needed to distract himself until his fever went away; they didn't usually last so long, but for whatever reason this particular fever would not let up. He'd been sitting at his desk contemplating taking a break from work to spar with Lee—despite the hour Lee would certainly be willing—and then suddenly he'd grown far too warm.

Yes, a distraction was what he needed.

“Lee,” he said in his usual dry monotone, rousing Lee from sleep.

“Yes, Kazekage-sama?” Lee asked rubbing his eyes sleepily and blinking up at Gaara. He was still half asleep, otherwise he would have gotten out of bed and put a shirt on by now—Lee was overly modest and easily embarrassed, a fact that still baffled Gaara.

“Is my face red?”

Lee frowned, then had to stifle a yawn. “Red?” He squinted, letting one bare leg fall to the floor. Gaara’s eyes followed the motion, hawk-like in their tracking of that limb. “A bit. W-why?” he asked through another yawn.

“I think I have a fever.”

“A fever?” Lee repeated dumbly, shaking his head. He rubbed at his face, chasing away the last dregs of sleep from his mind.

“Yes.”

“Do you feel sick?”

“I do not know. My stomach feels funny and I’m hot.”

“Perhaps you should sit down, Kazekage-sama,” Lee said, pulling his sheets around his waist as he climbed out of bed.

Gaara’s face warmed further, his stomach clenching oddly. Perhaps he was going to throw up. That might explain the weird clenching in his stomach.

Lee pulled on a shirt over his head, then fought with the sheet as he pulled a pair of sleeping pants on. Gaara could not tear his gaze away from Lee as he redressed himself, putting on clothes that were only meant as a formality. Gaara had seen Lee shirtless plenty of times during their sparring matches.

“Here,” Lee said, that air of formality still about him as he pulled up a chair and motioned for Gaara to sit down. It was annoying but Gaara hadn’t expressed this to Lee yet so he continued on with his formalities and distance. Gaara didn’t see the point of it all. They trained together on a daily basis, didn't they? Usually training together was a sign of friendship—then again, friends didn't call each other by their titles. He thought it was silly for Lee to call him 'Kazekage' because of this, but more than that he _wanted_ Lee to call him by his name.

“What is wrong?” Lee asked, leaning forward and looking into Gaara’s face.

“I feel strange.”

Lee nodded, blinking owlishly at him still tired from sleep. “You said you think you have a fever. But I am not a medic-nin, Kazekage-sama. I do not know how to treat this.”

Gaara shook his head. “I know. I wanted to spar. You said that we could whenever I wanted to.”

“Oh. Oh!” Lee said beaming, but his smile faded quickly. “But if you are not feeling well then you should not overexert yourself! You will only make yourself sicker!”

Gaara frowned. “But I feel fine. Just strange.”

Lee's frown deepened, the furrow of his brow more pronounced in his confusion. “Do you feel weak? Or light-headed?”

Gaara shook his head. “I feel hot. And my stomach feels weird.”

Admittedly, he did not feel so weird now, but his fevers had a habit of coming and going. He was surprised Lee hadn't noticed yet because the fevers, which had started to plague him off and on a month ago, usually seemed to happen in Lee's company. Perhaps he was allergic to something.

“I do not know, Kazekage-sama. If you go to a medic-nin they will be able to help you. I would hate to be wrong in diagnosing you.”

Gaara frowned. “I want to spar.”

“We can spar,” Lee assured him, “but I would feel much better if you were healthy when we did so. After all, you cannot fight with as much youthful energy if you are sick! And fighting only exacerbate your sickness! I do not want to be the reason you become sicker, and I am sure that Temari-san would not appreciate it either.”

Gaara stared at Lee, serious and intent. “But I do not feel weak or light-headed. I just feel hot and my stomach feels strange.”

Lee sighed, moving to sit on his bed. “I would like to help you—I would also love to spar with you!—but if you are sick there is not much I can do.”

“Temari put a cloth on Kankurou’s forehead,” Gaara said matter-of-factly. “She made him drink a lot of water—despite our rules about conserving it—and she fed him soup. She also made him stay in bed.”

Lee nodded slowly. “Perhaps Temari-san can do the same for you. I can go with you to her home if you would like.”

“No. I want to spar.” He would not be moved. It was just one of those nights: he was feeling restless, his work had been dragging on endlessly, and he'd known if he'd attempted to sleep he'd only be plagued by nightmares. He needed to exercise and Lee was good for that; so even if he was feeling strange and quite possibly sick he needed to spar.

Lee looked like a trapped animal. Gaara could see that he wanted to disagree, but was warring with that damnable formality of his. It would work in Gaara’s favor now. Finally, Lee’s shoulders slumped. “All right. Let me get dressed.”

Gaara nodded. Lee looked sheepishly from Gaara to the door, then sighed, grabbed his suit, and moved to the bathroom to change. He closed the door behind him, but his door had a funny habit of not staying shut ever since Lee had accidentally slammed it closed a bit too forcefully in a fit of embarrassment one night when Gaara had visited unannounced and found Lee buck-naked in bed.

“If you become sicker it is your own fault,” he chided, sounding petulant. Gaara glanced up, looking at the bathroom door. The mirror was visible from where he sat, giving him a clear view of Lee as he changed. Lee pulled his shirt off, all to suddenly naked and completely oblivious to the eyes watching him.

Gaara’s fever returned and his stomach knotted up so forcefully he actually did think he would be sick. He frowned, looking away and touching his face. He was definitely warm—warmer than he’d ever been before. He closed his eyes, envisioned Lee changing and the fever spiked again. Gaara let out a shaky breath, opening his eyes to stare at the bathroom mirror once more. Lee was in the process of putting on his leg weights, the sleeves of his suit dangling from his waist as he bent forward, his muscles rippling, the many white scars on his body standing out against his tanned skin.

“If Temari-san finds out,” Lee continued, “she will be very cross with me, you realize. I really do wish you would change your mind. As much as I am all for a youthful bout of sparring, I really think—Ka-Kazekage-sama! What are you doing?!?”

Gaara stood in the doorway of the bathroom, staring at Lee with a curious expression on his face as he scrutinized him, trying to understand why looking at Lee made him feel sick. Lee, for his part, had fallen to the floor in a heap and was staring in confused embarrassment up at Gaara, his face red. “Kazekage-sama?” he said, uncertainty coloring his voice.

“It’s you.”

Lee frowned. “I—I am me, yes.”

Gaara shook his head. “No. You’re the one making me feel sick.”

It took a moment for those words to process—Gaara could see Lee repeating them in his mind—and when they finally registered his face fell. He sat up slowly, looking at the ground, an injured look on his face. “I-I beg your pardon, Kazekage-sama?” he said softly, his eyes brimming with tears.

“You. What did you do to me?” It wasn’t harsh. Gaara said it like he said everything else: flatly, without much inflection, as though he were making a statement. Lee still winced.

“I-I do not know what you mean, Kazekage-sama. Honestly, I do not.”

Gaara frowned, his eyes raking over Lee’s body. He took in the curve of his neck, the muscles he had seen on countless occasions, the scars that decorated Lee’s skin, the hair that peppered his arms and chest, and the trail of it that disappeared beneath his suit. His face felt hot again and his stomach clenched. What was this? Was it some sort of disease? He let out a frustrated breath, trying and failing to understand the situation.

“You’re the reason I feel sick,” Gaara finally said, more slowly. “How are you doing that?”

The tears in Lee's eyes were threatening to fall as he stared up at Gaara. “I-I am not—I do not believe—I am sorry if my presence is a problem, Kazekage-sama! I truly thought that we were friends!”

Gaara clung to that word like a lifeline, his eyes wide and his mouth open in silent surprise. They were friends, even though Lee never called him anything but 'Kazekage-sama' and even though Lee always kept a respectable distance from him. They were friends.

“I am your friend,” Gaara assured him.

Lee wiped the tears from his eyes, the downward pull of his mouth fading a bit and his brows relaxing. “But—but why would you say that I make you sick?”

“Because I feel hot when I look at you.”

If it had taken Lee a long time to process that he was the source of Gaara's illness, it took him even longer to process that he made Gaara feel hot. He repeated the words, his mouth silently moving over the 'o' of 'hot', Gaara's eyes watching his lips pucker and press together. He looked up at Gaara, frowned, tilted his head, then repeated the words aloud, before shaking his head as though they didn’t make sense. His brows furrowed further as he tried valiantly to make sense of what Gaara was saying, and then something like understand passed over his face. He promptly turned a shade of red brighter than any sunburn he’d obtained while in Suna. “I-I-I-I—”

Gaara frowned at Lee’s babbling, noting the redness in Lee’s face idly. Lee was prone to fits of embarrassment, but Gaara had never seen him quite so red. He peered into Lee's face, reached out and touched his forehead. “You have a fever, too.”

Lee nodded, then shook his head. “I—no, that is not it! I—Kazekage-sama! W-what—did you—I—“ He slumped forward, looking down at his hands. “Kazekage-sama,” he said, his voice small, “you are not sick. You—you are a-a-a—excited.”

“No, I’m not.” Gaara had been excited before, he knew what that was like and usually when he was excited people died. Although he hadn’t been excited since the Chuunin exams, he could still remember that dangerous feeling and the blood-lust that had always accompanied it; that need to wrap his sand around someone and kill them. This was definitely not the same thing.

He didn’t want to kill Lee, for one thing; and he had never been hot, nor had his stomach felt strange when he'd been excited in the past. He compared the two feelings in his mind, trying to find similarities, but came up blank. “You are mistaken, Lee. I am not excited. I am sick.”

Lee shook his head. “T-that feeling is not—it is not sickness, Kazekage-sama. I—” He looked up, his face still bright red. After several minutes of intense staring, he seemed to come to a decision. He slowly rose to his feet, looking shaky and unsure, and moved towards Gaara. Lee faltered, staring at him with his large eyes and his mouth drawn down in a frown making his resemblance to a turtle more stark. Gaara’s skin prickled, hotter now that Lee was standing so close to him, close enough that he could reach out and touch him. He could feel Lee’s body heat, could smell the desert on Lee mixed with the smell of leaves that always seemed to hang around him; it was heady and Gaara felt light-headed.

“I am definitely sick.”

“I am not the best person to explain this,” Lee said, his voice uncharacteristically soft. Gaara had always thought that Lee did not know how to be quiet. The whisper of Lee’s voice felt much more intimate and his stomach clenched again. “But I promise you are not sick. The reason you feel the way you do is because you are—” Lee seemed to fight with himself for a long moment before he finally opened his mouth and finished, a deep shade of red, “aroused. You are aroused, Kazekage-sama.”

“I already told you I am not exci—”

He was cut off by Lee’s mouth, unexpected but so gentle it bordered on tentative. Gaara’s fever went through the roof, rising to an unhealthy degree and he was sure that if he did not see a medic-nin _right now_ he would die from it. Despite the immediate concern for his health, Gaara did not move—could not move. Lee was hot against him and Gaara could feel the uneven skin of Lee’s arms beneath his hands, which had come up of their own accord. He wondered idly why he hadn’t used sand to defend himself, considering how poor his taijutsu was, but the answer evaded him. His brain turned to mush as his fever reached dangerous levels.

The kiss ended leaving Gaara’s head spinning, and his mouth and his skin prickling. He was still dangerously hot, but it suddenly clicked into place. Gaara had never kissed anyone before; not in a friendly way, not in a familial way, and certainly not in a romantic or sexual way; but he had seen people kiss and knew that there were different ways of kissing, that friends could do it, that families did it, and that lovers did it. He was almost sure that the way Lee had kissed him did not fit into the two former categories, which only left the latter two.

Gaara’s brain, which had already been reduced to mush by the fever, seemed to fry on the instant. He blinked, staring up at a very unsure Lee, and then blinked again. He licked his lips, his eyes narrowing, and took a step back watching as Lee’s face fell. The fever did not lessen as he created space between them, but the cool air felt good on his skin.

“That is not how you reduce a fever,” he said.

“I—I know. I—please forgive me. I was not thinking.”

Gaara was silent, staring at Lee for a long moment. He could not remember what it felt like to be properly sick, but he could gather from what he had seen of others that being sick was not fun. It left you weak and vulnerable and made you feel awful. He did not feel awful. He was hot and his stomach felt strange, but he did not feel awful. Or weak. Vulnerable perhaps, but not weak.

“I’m not sick,” he said, trying that out for size.

Lee swallowed, shaking his head. “I do not believe so, Kazekage-sama.”

Gaara’s eyes narrowed. “You should call me by my given name.”

Lee flushed. “But that is disrespectful! I am just a Jounin—”

“You said yourself we're friends. Plus you kissed me and you make me feverish. I do not think you need to be so formal, nor do I find it disrespectful.”

Lee gaped at Gaara, wide-eyed for a long moment before he nodded slowly. “If you insist.”

“I do,” he said, the barest hint of a smile touching his mouth. “I also insist that you kiss me again until my fever goes down.”

Lee did a double take, his face going red all over again as he boggled at the Kazekage. “I—are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“You want me to kiss you?”

Gaara did his best not to roll his eyes. “Yes,” he said again.

“Did—did you like it?”

That gave Gaara pause. After a long moment he decided that he didn’t know, but he definitely thought he could like it. That would take time because kissing was vulnerable and a tad overwhelming, and fevers were uncomfortable things; but he did like spending time with Lee and seeing Lee naked made his stomach feel weird, which he also wasn’t sure about. However, since this was all very new he might learn to like that too.

“I think so,” he finally admitted. The smile Lee gave him was so blinding and so sincere that Gaara almost forgot to breathe, which was a silly thing to forget because breathing was a very important bodily function.

Before he could say anything else Lee made a strangled noise, as though he were stopping himself from shouting in excitement, and then launched himself at the Kazekage. He pulled Gaara close, kissing him with as much youthful passion as he could muster, (which was to say, quite a lot). They kissed for hours, with breaks in between where Lee would say something silly and flowery that sounded to Gaara like love.

As far as his fever was concerned it never did break, but Gaara didn’t mind that so much.

**Author's Note:**

> It's probably obvious that Gaara's meant to be grey-ace or demisexual (whichever suits the reader more, really). I wrote this before I'd really figured out that I'm ace--before I even knew asexuality was a thing, so in a lot of ways this fic was an exploration of more than just Gaara's sexuality but my own. The intent, in hindsight, is that both Lee and Gaara are on the ace spectrum, and I may write some companion stories to this exploring Lee's feelings some and their relationship.


End file.
